Myth of Mind

Myth of Mind: Stanley Wilkin


Academia.edu

Read when you get the chance!

Ying Cao

The dry month moves slowly to its end,
Spitting out wind and rain
Its traditional death throes.
Snow falls
Like a commemorative shroud.

Ying Cao

We gathered together as a group to mark two papers, to accept that we were of the same mind when awarding referral or passes. I did not pass either. Nevertheless, the head of the tutors passed the first, the quality of which was very low and exhibited no evidence of application of material. But Edexcel's like that. The learning outcomes are specific but markers seem unable to realise that.

A Health and Social Care Lecturer said to me: "How much responsibility should we take for allowing such types get into health and social care to deal with vulnerable people? I am helping disfunctional, stupid and aggressive people get health and social care qualifications. We must be mad! All of us!"

As stated, the college takes in anyone and everyone. We are helping to build up problems for the future if any of the destructive types we teach find jobs in the health and social care sector.

Do lecturers need to write good English?

Is it really a problem if a lecturer's English is poor? Many brilliant individuals from Europe and Asia have arrived in both Britain and the USA to work and have made valuable contributions to both societies. They have also made immense contributions to knowledge. Well, perhaps but nevertheless surely at college and university level all lecturers should be able to compose adequate English and if they can't they should receive help from an experienced English teacher. Teachers in primary and secondary schools are expected to be able to write good English, so why not at colleges and universities? In fact in the best universities a lecturer has to have excellent English, only in third and fourth rate educational facilities (East London, London Metropolitan, South Bank, Middlesex, Bedfordshire) do the authorities turn a blind eye. In many private colleges the students do not know if the lecturer is writing good English or not.

 A further problem concerns the integrity of many foreign lecturers who far too often lie about their qualifications. These commonly display poor English and by that can be identified. These buy assignments and pass them over as their own or in the recent past employed cut and paste and their lecturers turned a blind eye. In each private college there seems to be one or two senior academics whose educational backgrounds cannot sustain investigation.

I remember a middle-aged Indian woman from a wealthy background who claimed a doctorate in psychology but seemed to know nothing about the subject.

Another brief interlude:


Deepening darkness
Is not as dark
As a beautiful flower decaying.

Ying Cao

A CHERRY TREE

A change of direction, if a brief one.

CHERRY TREE

A cherry tree, heavy with fruit,

Once stood at the bottom of my garden

By the small pond filled with septic water

Disagreeably still. Ignoring it, over time, its

Fruit fell and decayed.

Over time its trunk became overwhelmed

With boles, its branches snapped.

Close by the rich soil

Was suffocated with weeds.

Ying Cao

Lecturers who write bad English.

Last Thursday I went into the classroom to find writing on the board. It appeared to be for a business course. As I used to teach business I stopped to read it. At least half the words were misspelled.

The excuse given by lecturers for inadequate English:

1) I am from another country.

Answer: Yes but how did you get a degree in this country if your English is poor, and if you didn't achieve one here why teach in Britain without some kind of English training?

2) Its not important as I know the subject.

Answer: Yes knowing the subject is important but higher literacy standards surely should be expected of teachers? And what about your marking if your English is so poor? How can you tell when a student is writing well or when their English is poor?

I would not employ a teacher who cannot write adequate English. The majority of students have poor English, but how can they learn to write better if the teachers themselves cannot write correct English?

Student feedback

Last week was the end of my first course with my new college. I work there two and a half days a week, which is sufficient for me. In one class a student gave me feedback. The students had/have certain problems with my teaching, which I will look at below.

1) Apparently they cannot always understand what I say. The student said one problem is that a lot of the other students were from outside Britain and had little previous experience of health and social care. I use too many difficult words it seems and have a English accent (Oxbridge, clear to any English speaker). This course is nevertheless the equivalent of a degree course.

Student's remedy: I should dumb down, that is come down to their level and I suspect even change my accent. I am a bad teacher because I do not do so. Another problem with my teaching is that I expect them to do some work!

My remedy: the students should actually do some work, read for example at least the online material provided by the college or they should consider doing a course within their limited abilities. I also said that the point of education is that they should come up to the teacher's level not the teacher descend to theirs. Many of the students want/need the lecturer to do all the work, even write the assignments. Their quarrel is with lecturers who decline to do that! So far, 4 students have delivered well-written work that is not their's but done, of course, by people not on the course and that does not therefore actually reflect the course. It is therefore completely wrong and at odds with the material I delivered. Like other lecturers at the college, I have been heavily criticised by students who really do not have the ability, knowledge or educational background to do the course. Students have been signed on for these courses because if they are recruited on to the lower levels they will not get grants.

This belief that everyone will pass no matter what is true, at least in private colleges. They have no integrity. Let me here once again express my concerns and outrage with the authorising authorities which allow these things to both occur and continue, ISI and QAA. Their stupidity, naivety and ignorance know no bounds.

These colleges are shops. You pay money, you pick up whatever goods you want.

Again: those who pass, thousands now, may go on to teach others convinced of their own superior qualities. The stupid are taking over education!

joke innit

One reason for the appalling attitude of many of the students is that some have been told that no matter what they will receive their qualifications. Nobody in the college ever fails! A dire situation for lecturers! So of course the stupider ones will act out, be rude and aggressive! They don't need to learn but can treat the whole thing as a joke.

END VIEW

I've now thankfully finished with the horrendously difficult class. Although many students were brilliant, genuine learners, the rest were the worst I have come across. They came in one massive horde for the final day, sat at the back, spoke to each other and were rude to everyone else. Final day, I ignored them.

The college has a money-first policy, grabbing whoever it can no matter what their motivation or ability. Its the teachers and good students who have to deal with it.

Yoda

At the Luton college, see on other blog, the principal was a lovely Asian gentleman who mangled spoken English, although he claimed to be a Doctor. He was into micro-managing. Whenever something was written to do with courses he passed his eye over it and proceeded to do rewrites. In fact, his written English was as bad as his spoken English. One of the lecturers claimed he changed English into Yoda, the little green character from Star Wars, speech, with grammar meandering about riotously.

A ten year old's written English.

Working in my first private college proved instructive. One of the staff, who claimed an IT Masters, was asked by the directors to write an appeal to the Border Agency. I was not asked because I suspect they did not trust my English, even though I am a published author. They considered this individual the better choice. As a group, they were remarkably arrogant. I later read his letter and it looked as if written by a ten year old. Misspellings galore, grammar all over the place. It was the same with all the staff, including the lecturing staff. They truly thought the letter was wonderful although I suspect it further roused the Border Agency's suspicions about the college's true nature and true commitment  to education. I've little doubt that on receiving it they fell about laughing. The principal director later, when the college closed down, opened up an education agency. He spelled educational wrong and there it is, visible to all, on Linkedin-educatinal.

It is not just the possible lack of qualifications of these lecturers, but it is also their lack of intelligence. It is a woeful experience talking to them. I remember one college I worked at in Luton, Bedfordshire, my days were spent in horror at the conversations I had to endure. The English teacher was a benign Irishman who had converted to Islam because he believed in male superiority and women did as they were told, he believed, in the religion. The Head of Business was equally misogynist and held entrenched, barbaric Christian views. He firmly believed that all homosexuals were going to hell and should be transported there as soon as possible. My conversations with them demonstrated that they had no knowledge of genetics, philosophy, history, etc, etc. By my conservations, it seemed that they occupied the lowest intellectual levels.

lack of

To reiterate, a common problem is the lack of genuine qualifications or achievement of most college lecturers who have obtained positions and status via private colleges. How many of my colleagues are qualified? A large number would not be or have limited qualifications.

Cheater's Charter

When I first became involved with private, predominantly International, colleges I discovered that the agreed examination body of choice was Edexcel Btec. The reasons? First, the colleges were able to get their students pass, mert or distinction grades, no matter how poor the student, by organised and easily achieved cheating. Copy and paste was the order of the day, actively encouraged by lecturers. Edexcel examiners checked 4 in 100 and were none too bothered if the college handed them the 4 to check. These would be especially writen for the purpose by self-acclaimed experts in Edexcel. Based on the 4, all students would be passed! Often the tudent knew little English and had no or little understanding of the course. Then, Edexcel was known as the Cheater's Charter.

But many students pass without endeavouring to evaluate, certainly if both marker and external examiner are poor. This happens. Therefore I would not recruit as a lecturer anyone who had only Edexcel qualifications. They are not truly qualified.

Edexcel Btec-otherwise known as Pearsons. How is it commonly taught, if not necessarily the way Edexcel wishes?

Usually it has three or four learning outcomes displayed for lecturer and student alike. These are broken down into three or four sub-headings or learning outcomes. So, for example, LO1 might be broken into LO1.1, LO1.2, LO1.3. These can be further broken down into articulated outcomes. In this way the process can be seen as mechanistic.

A teacher, although this is not the required fashion, can then teach each learning outcome bit by bit. Unfortunately, this creates trouble when the student is required to do the end of course examined tasks that determine how much the student has learnt. Assignments, provided as one of the tasks, are always reflective thereby contradicting the teaching. Students will then write it as they've been taught. For example:

LO1.1-as a question not a guideline.
Followed by answer.

LO1.2-as a question

Followed by answer.

In fact LO1 says -"Assess-

LO2 says-"Analyse


LO3 says-"Evaluate-

Accordingly the student does none of these things and must, if marked properly, fail.

Lecturer/student expectations

What is the difference between a university and the college I am at present teaching in, besides poor quality students and staff? Well, it is the lecturer's perceived tasks. I am expected to spoon-feed my students. They expect me to do it and get angry if I don't. They do not believe that they should actually think about the subject, do independent research or, in fact, any work at all.

My court case with CCP is underway. If only all these bogus institutions run by their crooked owners could be dealt with!

lecturers

In the college I keep away from most of the other lecturers as its difficult to know whether they are genuinely qualified or not. That uncertainty combined with their astounding arrogance is off  putting. As a published academic I don't want to mix with frauds.

I have a private student from the Arab world doing an MBA at a British university who requires extensive help for his seminars. At present, he seems to lack the ability to do an MBA dissertation but unfortunately he will probably obtain one by purchasing it from a willing academic who has no ethics or judgement. Will this Arab guy, a nice enough sort, one day be lecturing at a university near you?

At my present college, the teaching is dumbed down to reach the students' intelligence levels. Each learning outcome is laid out in a process that allows the students to grasp what is being said but not the ideas behind each learning outcome. This week one student accused me of not providing answers. Not the first time they have tried to tell me how to teach. Dumb I'm afraid and dumber.